No. 16.
The Chief Commissioner to Mr. Preece.

With reference to your letter of the 5th February last, relative to several blocks of land offered for sale in the Mercury Bay District which you report to be unfit for agricultural or pastoral purposes, I have the honor to inform you that as the existence of valuable minerals on the land referred to by you is as yet a matter of uncertainty, and as it is unfit for agricultural purposes, it is desirable that a smaller price should be offered than has been recently given for land at Coromandel.

I am further directed to request that you will furnish an estimate of the probable cost of its acquisition, and report the probability or otherwise of its being purchased at a reasonable price.